203. Love Wins Page 3

  There was silence as Lord Heywood was too astounded to reply.

  Then he enquired,

  “As your host, I should be asking you those questions.”

  The blue eyes opened, if possible, wider than ever.

  “My – host? You really – cannot be – Lord Heywood! He is – abroad.”

  “I have returned,” Lord Heywood replied, “at what appears to be an inconvenient moment.”

  His visitor considered this for a moment and then she answered,

  “It will certainly be – inconvenient if you are – ordering me to – leave, which is something I – cannot do – immediately.”

  “That is obvious,” Lord Heywood remarked dryly.

  He glanced, as he spoke, at her nightgown, which was fine enough to be very revealing.

  He could see the curves of two very young breasts and, as if she was suddenly aware of it, she quickly pulled the sheet higher.

  Lord Heywood noticed as she did so that the sheet, edged with lace, bore his mother's monogram and the pillowcases as well with a frill of real lace were as he remembered them.

  “You have certainly made yourself very comfortable,” he remarked sarcastically.

  “There was – nobody to – stop me and the caretakers, if that is what those two old people are, never come – higher than the ground floor.”

  Lord Heywood moved a little way from the window towards the bed, but not near enough to frighten this strange young woman.

  Now he could see her more clearly he realised that she was very lovely, in fact far too beautiful to be wandering about apparently alone and sleeping in a strange house without anybody else’s knowledge of it.

  “Suppose we start at the beginning,” he suggested. “As you know who I am, please tell me your name and why you are here.”

  There was a distinct pause and he knew from the expression on the girl’s face that she was thinking.

  He waited until she said a little hesitatingly,

  “My – name is – Lalita.”

  Lord Heywood again waited and, as she said no more, he asked,

  “And your other name?”

  “As far as you need be – concerned my name is Lalita – and that is all.”

  “I suspect you have run away and are hiding from someone or something.”

  She gave him a flashing smile.

  “That is intelligent of you.”

  “Thank you, but the information you have given me is too scanty.”

  “That is all I can – tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, as you so rightly surmised – I have run away and as there was nobody living in this lovely house it seemed a – perfect place for me to – hide.”

  “From whom?”

  Again she smiled and there was a hint of mischief in her blue eyes.

  “That, as you must be aware, is a question that – I must not answer.”

  “Very well,” Lord Heywood said. “As you are determined to be mysterious, will you tell me why you are hiding?”

  Lalita put her head a little on one side and he realised with amusement that she was considering whether she could trust him or not.

  After a moment he added,

  “Shall I promise you that nothing you say at the moment will be used in evidence against you?”

  She gave a little laugh and he thought that it was an unexpectedly joyous sound.

  “You are not a bit like I expected you to be. I looked at all those pompous old ancestors of yours on the stairs and in the dining room and I thought that you would be just like them.”

  “I always believed that there was a distinct family resemblance.”

  “It is very slight and you are much more handsome than I expected. And younger.”

  “I would accept that as a compliment if I did not think it was simply a means to an end.”

  Again she laughed.

  “Of course it is! I want you to help me – by letting me stay here.”

  “You must realise that is impossible.”

  Because he wished to see her better than he could at the moment Lord Heywood turned to draw back the curtains from one of the other windows.

  Now the sunshine seemed to fill the room with a golden haze and he thought as he looked back to the bed that against the white linen and lace and the blue curtains Lalita was like a Princess in a Fairytale.

  She looked somehow insubstantial with her fair hair and blue eyes and what he could see now was a flawless pink-and-white skin that made him feel that she was a figment of his imagination and had stepped out of a dream.

  He deliberately sat down in one of the chairs with a gilt frame that was covered in blue brocade.

  Then, as he crossed his legs and appeared to be very much at his ease, he said,

  “If you want my help, then at least make your plea for it sound convincing.”

  She gave him a little glance from under her eyelashes, which he realised curled back from her blue eyes like a child’s and were gold at the roots becoming naturally dark at the tips.

  “I suppose that is the way,” she said, “you behave to your poor soldiers when they are up in front of you for being late on parade or some other dastardly crime.”

  “They usually have a very plausible excuse.”

  “Very well, I will tell you mine – I have run away because my Guardian is trying to marry me to an – imbecile.”

  Lord Heywood looked at her incredulously.

  “It is true,” she insisted defensively.

  “And why should your Guardian wish to do that?”

  “Because the imbecile is his son!”

  “I find that assertion hard to believe.”

  “So I suspect would everybody else,” Lalita replied. “But I refuse, utterly and absolutely refuse, to marry a man who is what the servants call ‘touched in the attic’, who slobbers at me and has wet flabby hands.”

  The way she spoke sounded so like a small animal spitting at its pursuers that Lord Heywood could not help laughing.

  “It may seem funny to you,” Lalita retorted, “but it was a case of either doing what my uncle wanted or running away.”

  “So it is your uncle who is your Guardian,” Lord Heywood said quietly.

  “Now you are being sneaky and trying to get things out of me,” Lalita countered, “but I can promise you one thing, if you try to make me go back I shall either escape or drown myself in the lake.”

  “Very dramatic!” Lord Heywood exclaimed. “But you sound somewhat hysterical and that weakens your case.”

  Lalita gave a sound that was one of exasperation

  “Why did you have to come back?” she complained. “I found this a perfect place to hide in and it is in fact very comfortable.”

  “How do you feed yourself?”

  She looked at him in a way that made him know that she was deciding whether or not to tell him the truth.

  Then she responded,

  “It has been somewhat of a monotonous diet. The caretakers keep hens, which lay all over the place and there are plenty of vegetables – in the garden.”

  Lord Heywood’s lips twitched,

  “I see you are very resourceful.”

  “Actually I am a good cook when I have the ingredients, but when I ran away I had no idea where I was going and so I did not think of taking food with me. ”

  “You must have had some idea where you were heading.”

  “I did think of going to France. Perhaps you could help me to go there.”

  “I don’t think that France is at all the right place for you at this moment,” Lord Heywood asserted firmly,

  “Why not? The War is over – and I am not only very proficient in French but Mama had a close friend there called the Duchesse de Soissons, who I am sure would be glad to see me – if I could find her.”

  “Are you really contemplating wandering about France alone, looking for a Duchesse who may be dead for all you know?”

  “I think it would be rather �
�� exciting!”

  “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

  Lord Heywood thought as he spoke of the chaos in the country that he had just left.

  There were still deserters from the French Army pillaging and looting when they had the chance and the peasants were desperately poor after the privations that they had endured during the fighting. There was also as usual an enormous amount of corruption.

  He could not imagine anything nearer to madness than that a young woman alone and as pretty as Lalita should travel anywhere in France.

  There was now a thoughtful expression on his face and after a moment she said,

  “Well, if you will not let me go to France – the alternative is to – stay here.”

  “That, as I have already said, is impossible,” Lord Heywood replied.

  “But why? The house is big enough and, if you feel that your friends might notice me, 1 could hide away in some small attic.”

  “I certainly don’t mean to entertain.”

  “Why ever not? There must be plenty of people willing to welcome you after being away for so long now that you have returned home.”

  “A home I cannot afford.”

  He had not meant to say anything so intimate, but the words had come bitterly to his lips before he could prevent them.

  “Are you saying that you are in the same position as all the other men – who have come back from the War?” Lalita asked him.

  “It depends what you mean,” Lord Heywood said cautiously, wishing that he had not been so outspoken.

  “But you must be aware,” she replied, “that most of the men recently demobilised from the forces are desperately poor, many of them in rags, and they returned to find their homes with leaking roofs, their children hungry and needless to say there is no work for them.”

  Lord Heywood was surprised not only that she knew what was happening but that there should be so much compassion in her voice as if their suffering hurt her.

  All the English women he had met in Paris since the War ended had been concerned only with the round of social activities designed to entertain them.

  Although the Senior Officers talked of the unhappy conditions in England, it was not a subject of conversation at dinner parties and he had the feeling that, if the poor were suffering, the rich did not care.

  He realised that Lalita was waiting for an answer to her question and after a moment he said,

  “You have expressed my position very eloquently.”

  “But you have this house, although your farms are in a bad state, like everybody else’s.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I have seen them.”

  “When?”

  “I am not going to answer that sort of question as I realise that you are trying to find out more about me.”

  “But you must understand I cannot help you unless I have some idea of why you are here.”

  “I have told you that, unless I go back and marry a man who makes me creep, there is nothing else I can do but throw myself on your mercy, since you will not let me go to France.”

  “Again very dramatically put,” Lord Heywood said, “but impossible for a number of reasons. First because I can hardly be responsible for hiding a girl of your age without getting myself into a great deal of trouble and secondly because I cannot afford to entertain a guest of any sort.”

  “I can pay my way. I have a little money with me.”

  “I have not yet reached the point where I have to accept money from a woman,” Lord Heywood said coldly.

  “Hoity-toity!” Lalita mocked. “Beggars cannot be choosers!”

  She thought perhaps she had annoyed him and added quickly,

  “Not that I believe you really are a beggar when you own a house like this.”

  “It belongs together with the estates to the future inheritor of the title,” Lord Heywood told her.

  “You mean your son?”

  “As things are I think it very unlikely that I shall ever be able to afford one.”

  “But you would like to be married?”

  “Good God, no!” Lord Heywood expostulated before he could stop himself. “I have enough troubles at the moment.”

  “Splendid! Since that makes two of us who have no wish to get married – we should get along famously.”

  Lord Heywood sighed.

  “Now listen, Lalita, before we embroil ourselves any further in this fantasy we have to face facts. I am sorry for your difficulties, if they are what you say they are, but there is nothing I can do about them. I will see if my batman can find us anything to eat and then you must be on your way.”

  “On my way to – where?”

  “That is your business,”

  “How can you be so cold-hearted – so cruel and – so brutal as to turn me out when you know I have – nowhere to go?”

  “Perhaps you should go home, wherever that may be.”

  “And marry a man I loathe and detest? How could I – let him – touch me?”

  Her voice had so much horror in it that almost despite himself Lord Heywood stiffened.

  Now there was an expression on her face that he knew owed nothing to acting and he fully realised that she was frightened, really frightened of being forced into a marriage with a man she obviously detested.

  “I presume you are an orphan, but have you no other relatives who could help you?” he asked.

  “I don’t think they would be willing to hide me from my uncle.”

  “Who is your uncle?”

  “I have no intention of telling you that and, if you are a gentleman, you would not press me.”

  “If I had any common sense, I would force you to tell me the truth. Then I would immediately inform your uncle so he could come and take you away.”

  “But instead will you – try to understand how – desperate I am?”

  The question was undoubtedly an appeal and after a moment Lord Heywood said abruptly,

  “I will try to understand, but at the same time you cannot stay here.”

  “But – where can I – go?”

  “I shall have to consider the answer to that question,” he said. “In the meantime I suggest you get dressed.”

  He rose to his feet as he spoke and realised that Lalita was looking at him appraisingly.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I was just wondering whether I would be wiser to refuse to get up until you promise – that I can remain here at The Abbey. After all you could hardly turn me out into the snow with nothing on but my nightgown!”

  Lord Heywood laughed

  “If I did,” he said, “I have a feeling that by some ingenious and underhand method of yours you would still get your own way.”

  She put her head a little on one side as she answered,

  “In which case can I get up without being afraid?”

  “Afraid or not the sooner you dress yourself the better. You must realise that I should not be sitting here talking to you as you are now.”

  “There is nobody to be shocked by it except the mice – and there are mice in the wainscoting – but I just cannot see that it matters,” Lalita answered.

  “That is a matter of opinion,” Lord Heywood said. “You had better hurry for, if there is any breakfast to be had, I shall eat it all as I am hungry.”

  He walked to the door as he spoke, unlocked it and went out into the passage.

  As he did so, he heard Lalita give a little cry and had the idea that she was as hungry as he was.

  As he walked down the stairs, he thought that his return home was certainly different from what he had expected.

  He was also aware that finding Lalita had swept away both his moods of depression and sentimentality and she had certainly confronted him with a problem that he had for the moment no solution to at all.

  *

  Lalita pushed her empty plate to one side and exclaimed,

  “Now I feel better! I must admit it was a joy to have
toast and butter – two things I have missed these last few days, more than I could have believed possible.”

  Carter had procured eggs and bacon from the Merrivales, some bread, which he had toasted, and butter, which Lord Heywood learned that they obtained from one of the farms.

  “They are ever so apologetic, my Lord, that they hadn’t more to offer you,” Carter said when Lord Heywood found him in the kitchen.

  “I am afraid that little as it may be we have to share it with somebody else,” Lord Heywood replied.

  Carter looked at him enquiringly and he explained that he had found that there was a lady staying in the house, who had hidden herself there when the Merrivales were not looking.

  “A sensible thing to do, my Lord, if she didn’t want to be found,” Carter remarked. “This place’s big enough to hide an Army and I expects she’s made ’erself right comfortable.”

  “The question is, what are we going to eat?” Lord Heywood asked. “And I hope you have paid the Merrivales for what you have taken from them?”

  “I did, but it didn’t cost much, my Lord.”

  “You will pay the right price,” Lord Heywood said sharply. “Their pension is small enough in all conscience and it is impossible for me to raise it.”

  “There be a farm where I ’opes to get somethin’ substantial for luncheon, my Lord, and if you wants me to pay me way, as you puts it, I’ll have to ask you for a few shillin’s.”

  Lord Heywood had taken a guinea from his pocket and put it on the table.

  “That, Carter, has to last us for a long time. Buy only what is absolutely essential and, as soon as we have had breakfast, I will see what there is in the gun room, which should provide us with a main course, if nothing else.”

  “We’ll not go ’ungry, my Lord,” Carter said cheerfully, “and I’ve turned the ’orses out into the paddock so’s they can fend for themselves.”

  Lord Heywood was gratefully aware that Carter had thought of everything.

  Ten minutes later he thought the same again when he sat down to breakfast in the big dining room at a small table that was covered with a clean white cloth.

  The plates were from a dinner service that he had known all his life and were decorated with blue and gold with the Heywood crest emblazoned in the centre of them.

  He was just about to eat the eggs and bacon that Carter had brought from the kitchen when Lalita came into the room.